The secret sex life of the penicillin-producing fungus could make it more productive

New and more effective strains of the fungus used to produce penicillin could be developed after a team of international scientists unearthed the secret sex life of Sir Alexander Fleming's fungus Penicillium chrysogenum (P. chrysogenum).

The scientists from The University of Nottingham, Ruhr-University Bochum, The University of Göttingen, and Sandoz GmbH have announced a major breakthrough in our understanding of the sex life of the fungus P. chrysogenum. Their research looks sets to lead to the introduction of new and more effective strains of the world’s first antibiotic agent and has been published online in the leading academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS).